Grist List

Climate change will cause Finding Nemo to lose hearing, die

Would Finding Nemo's Nemo have found his dad if he couldn't hear? Probably not! Which is why it's so sad that all of the Nemos out in the ocean (technically, they're called "adorable baby clownfish") are going to lose their hearing, and therefore their sense of when it's time to swim as fast as they […]

Sarah Laskow Science

Reviving a river in Mexico City

Mexico City has treated its rivers badly: They tend to be paved over and filled with sewage. But Elías Cattan, a green building leader in Mexico City, wants to turn one of these f*cked-under resources back into a healthy, flowing river. Under Cattan’s guidance, the trash-clogged Río Piedad would become a viable waterway with a […]

Sarah Laskow Buildings

Live for free (almost) in a tiny home

How big is 320 square feet? It's roughly the size of a school bus. And Debra and Gary live in that amount of space with their teenage son. Why? Well, for starters, because it cost them $15,000 to build and now they're mortgage-free. They pay less than $150 a month to rent the land, which […]

Jess Zimmerman Culture

Critical List: John Bryson’s green credentials; biodegradable cups end as methane

John Bryson, Obama's new pick for commerce secretary, is a dyed-green-in-the-wool environmentalist (he co-founded NRDC), who's taken a swing through the corporate world. The U.N. carbon market shrunk for the first time since it was founded in 2005. Who's to blame? The U.S. Senate, of course! (Well, among others, but we have the most fun […]

Sarah Laskow Culture

Rejecting high-speed rail is not a good political move

Hey, it turns out people don't want to get divorced and die because of long car commutes! Actually, we're just guessing about that (makes sense, though, right?), but what's clear is that constituents won't thank you for nixing rail projects. Gas 2.0 checked in with the biggest rail refusenik governors, and they're all faltering in […]

Jess Zimmerman Cities

Manhattanhenge makes life in the city a little more magical

Today is Manhattanhenge, one of the two days a year when the setting sun lines up perfectly with the New York City street grid. Next to Central Park and possibly the High Line, it might be the best demonstration that living in the city doesn't rule out natural beauty … it just maybe makes it […]

Jess Zimmerman Cities

The wind money windfall in Sherman County, Oregon

Residents of Oregon's Sherman County used to hate on the strong winds endemic to the area. But now they pull in $590 per year, per household, just for tolerating the wind and the many wind turbines marring their viewshed. It’s like the oil payout for living in Alaska, only it’s not blood money from cannibalizing […]

Sarah Laskow Energy

Canada omitted 20 percent increase in oil-sands emissions from U.N. report

Canada reported to the United Nations that the country's greenhouse-gas emissions were dropping, down 6 percent in the last year. But the government left out one teensy little detail in its report. The emissions from the oil-sands industry, which extracts hard-to-reach oil from tar sands, increased by 20 percent in 2009. Pollution from the oil […]